Various approaches have been proposed for handling errors or failures in computers. In some examples, error-handling is not separated from hardware. Other examples do not address how to gather useful diagnostic information about errors or failures.
Unfortunately, conventional problem-solving for software often involves prolonged data-gathering and debugging. Collection of diagnostic data, if done in conventional ways, may impact software performance in unacceptable ways, and may have to be repeated several times until a problem's cause is revealed. Thus there is a need for automated solutions that provide useful diagnostic data, leading to a useful response; at the same time, the burdens of reproducing problems and tracing problems need to be reduced, and the destabilizing effects of major code revisions need to be avoided.